A mirror in the sky: assessment of an augmented reality method for depicting navigational information

Abstract

We investigated the efficacy of a novel augmented reality (AR) navigation display called Mirror in the Sky (MitS). AR displays can reduce the distance between virtual imagery content and the user’s view of the environment but may have limited benefit for depicting map-based survey information. MitS presents a simulated mirror in the upper visual field, which reflects the topographic layout of the terrain in front of the user. In our experiment, 28 participants used MitS and a track-up Map in virtual reality to perform a route confirmation task, which required participants to decide whether a route could be successfully navigated. A post-trial threat location recall task examined spatial awareness. On that task, accuracy, duration, and subjective workload measures favoured the Map. However, participants with virtual reality experience made more accurate route confirmation decisions with MitS than the Map.

Practitioner summary: We compared an augmented reality display called Mirror in the Sky (MitS) to a conventional electronic map for route confirmation and threat location tasks. Although the electronic map showed advantages over MitS on some measures, users with some VR experience performed route confirmation more accurately with MitS than a map.

Keywords:

• Navigation
• wayfinding
• display
• head-up display
• augmented reality
• virtual reality

Acknowledgements

The concept behind MitS was conceived by Uncharted Software Inc., who also contributed to the experimentation apparatus. We thank Tom Kapler and Dario Segura for conceptual and development support. We thank Paul Milgram, Holland Vasquez, David Gafni, and Catherine Solis for comments on the experimental design, methods, and testing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council, Grant #503607 under the DND/NSERC Research Partnership Programme, and Ontario Centres of Excellence under Grant #27560.